‘Green' guy aims to change the diaper business

April 23, 2010|CHRISTIANA LILLYclilly@tribune.com

When Brian Lewis' friends found out he was going to start a cloth diaper cleaning service, they were not surprised. A self-described "avid environmentalist," his parents had used cloth diapers, he helped change the cloth diapers on his baby sisters and he used them on his own children.

"So many people felt it was too difficult to manage cloth diapers by themselves, but they would do it if there was a service," he said.

When Lewis and his wife found out they were expecting their second child, they decided to go for it. In July 2006, Diaper Duty was created and is still going strong.

In the business, parents purchase cloth diapers, pinned together with snappy fasteners, in bulk and put out dirty diapers to be picked up by a driver. Then, a new clean batch is replaced.

"We're here for the convenience of the user, that's what we've created this for," he said.

For Lewis, there are four reasons to use cloth over disposable diapers. First, he said, it is better for your baby. In using cloth diapers, the parents are using natural and breathable materials that do not contain a wide array of chemicals.

He also said that since the child can feel when they have wet themselves, it speeds along the potty training process. Lewis said that his daughter, now 6, was daytime potty trained at 13 months and completely off her diapers at 18 months. His son, 3, took a little longer but still was out of diapers earlier than most children. So although cloth diapers need to be changed more frequently than plastic ones, there are less diaper changes in the long run.

Second, Lewis said that cloth diapers are better for the person's budget. Cloth diapers are matched in price to disposable diapers, but with Diaper Duty, there's the added service of having dirty ones taken away, cleaned, and clean ones delivered to your door. Broward County residents get free delivery and those in other counties pay $2 a week.

Third, he said using cloth diapers is better for the nation since it does away with the mentality of one-time plastic use. Finally, by not throwing out these materials, it is then better for the world. The water consumption for washing a cloth diaper is about the same for the water consumption of producing a plastic diaper, 2 cups, Lewis said.

In short, the company says that cloth diapers are "better for your baby and better for us all."

The cleaning process is also free of harsh chemicals. Rather than using chlorine bleach, the company uses sodium percarbonate: a mixture of sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide, a combination he says is a "wonderful sanitizing agent." For the rinse, white vinegar is used to neutralize the high pH from the wash cycle.

"Modern washing technology is not just spinning something around in a big drum anymore," he said.

Diaper Duty asks for a four-week commitment to give cloth diapers a fair try and has a running joke of guaranteeing a free diaper change – just not at 3 a.m. Lewis takes calls from parents unsure about whether they want to use cloth diapers or new parents who are adjusting to diaper changes of any kind. In the time that the company has been around, Lewis has seen customers from all political and social backgrounds utilizing the service.

"That was encouraging to me, that our customers were not stereotypical under any category," he said. He added that their goal has been to get "the average person to consider how modern cloth diapering is so much easier and it's not what people really think. There are people basing this on opinions that are not accurate and are outdated."